Amazing Phil
by hannibalsapron
Summary: Maybe that was the problem from the very beginning. Maybe Phil was meant to save Dan from himself. Maybe Phil was meant to keep everything moving. And maybe Dan was meant to fall in love with Phil, but Phil was never meant to fall in love with Dan. Rated T for mild swearing


**Title: **Amazing Phil

**Author: **Hannibalsapron

**Pairing: **Dan Howell/ Phil Lester

**Summary: **Maybe that was the problem from the very beginning. Maybe Phil was meant to save Dan from himself. Maybe Phil was meant to keep everything moving. And maybe Dan was meant to fall in love with Phil, but Phil was never meant to fall in love with Dan.

**Warnings: **Occasional Swearing, unrequited love

**Genre: **Angst

**Author's Note: **This was original posted on tumblr, but I thought I ought to post it here too. I hope you like it!

_This is heaven, this is hell_

Awful-no, terrible- monstrous, atrocious! His hand reached over to tug down his hair yet again, smoothing down its fringes and fussing over loose curls. Dan was done-finished, gone- he was sure that his nervous pandering of his shirt and hair was destroying his rational mindset that he had intended to keep and a cluster of people muttering to themselves about the time began to glance down at him, who was tapping nervously on the café tables.

"He'll see you and wonder what the hell he's getting himself into," Dan reprimandsed himself, "Then he's going to pretend to be nice and wonder why the fuck this kid's got a bunch of flowers waiting for him like some sort of date."

Dan whined lowly as he glanced at the bouquet he brought for him as a way to break the ice. Second guessing his absolutely w_onderful _idea of giving his idol a bunch of lilies as his awkward way of being friendly, and thinking to just fuck it and chuck the whole thing down the bin.

"Maybe I should-fuck," Dan curses inside, "He's here, he's here, he's here-"

He watched Phil approach the café with a tight lipped expression and a sense of awkwardness, rechecking his phone to match the address of his location to the one they had agreed to over their Facebook conversation.

Then Phil spotted him, the epitome of openness, and smiles at him forcing him to regain his train of thought, wiping the palms of his hands on his jeans, below the table a hundred times. Messing their first meeting up was in no way his intention and he just wished- for once- that he'll do this fine. He has to do this fine, okay, alright-perfect.

"Dan?"

"Yeah, Phil right?" Of course it's fucking Phil, awesome, super awesome Phil.

"Yeah," Phil said, gesturing towards the seat till Dan motioned him to sit down, "sorry I'm a bit late. I had to run some errands and lost time bumbling around."

"No worries," Dan said, "I uh-brought you these um, flowers."

"Oh. Oh?" Phil laughed almost incredulously as he reaches over the flowers, "Me?"

"Yeah you." Dan laughed back, trying his best for a normal sounding chuckle.

"I really don't know what to say…" Phil continued.

"You don't have to say anything, really. I am literally the worst for this-"

"No, no, uh it's fine." Phil turned the bouquet around in between his fingers and Dan knows that it isn't fine and that everything has just gone horribly wrong. But then Phil laughed, "I like flowers."

And it began like that.

Two months later they're lumped on a couch and Dan's crying over Titanic _again._ And even though it's been months, Dan still had his feeling of embarrassment still intact and was woefully horrified that Phil would leave if he found out Dan couldn't take movies and just bawled over them.

His other friends had laughed and poked fun at him endlessly for his lack of self-control when it comes to sob stories and when he looks at Phil, who smiles, verging on a laugh, at him, he thinks that their time has run its course, and Phil will suddenly realize how stupid he was being and just leave him to crumple into the blankets. But no. Phil says nothing and just pulls up a hand around his shoulder and rubs it as an attempt at comfort.

He hated that Phil had to comfort him, and hated it even more because it worked.

And his comfort was like a blanket on the days which drenched London in solemn rain and it was days like those reminded him of Phil's casual suggestion.

"My mum's been hinting me to move out." Phil places in the air as he throws a shell at an attempt to slow Dan down.

"Why not then?"

"Are you saying I should?"

"I'm just saying it would be fun. If your mum's still supporting you a little at least. I mean you can't expect to survive on your own, we work at _Wal-Mart, _Phil ."

Phil sighed as he laid down the controller, watching Dan's character jump around on the monitor on the first place podium, "I know, but I want to stay with someone though. Never was much fun staying alone."

"Going to have a roommate then?"

"Maybe."

His stomach compressed into himself and Dan cleared his throat. He could just imagine Phil playing video games with someone else. Phil making breakfast for someone else on days that he felt super chipper. Phil watching anime with someone else. Phil finding someone else-

"Do you wanna be my roommate? It'll be fun." Phil grinned goofily, picking up his hot chocolate and sipped gently.

Dan's mouth hovered over his own mug before he grinned cheekily at Phil. "You'd like extra torture sprinkled into you morning routines then?"

"No Dan!" Phil laughed as he sets the mug down "But… it'll be fun… with you."

Dan's heart may have thumped a little bit harder at that moment.

Then fast forward a year filled with comfort and bickering about sneaking cereal and stealing food and Phil's habit on buying plants that Dan did not approve of. At all. But he let it be. He supposed that if Phil never minded him, he shouldn't mind housing suspicious looking garden plants.

But then Phil had to leave for 2 weeks to live with his parents a while and Dan remembered whining about him having to pay for rent while Phil was gone but when Phil grinned and left the whole month's rent in their kitchen table the morning he left, Dan knew this wasn't what he wanted.

He wanted Phil back here. He would even dare admit he was a wreck with him gone. The two weeks Dan spent in arcades in search of new friends to hang out to prove to himself that he simply did not need Phil, was a disaster. He wanted to show that he would function quite perfectly, though Phil had teased him that he wouldn't, and that Phil was just a best friend that could be replaced every once in a while. Needless to say, he was wrong. And after the first few days, Dan barricaded himself in his room Skyping Phil.

That month was absolutely horrible.

Then Phil came back and Dan didn't realize that he had ran towards him, hugging him as if he was trying to regain Phil's warmth for the two weeks he was gone. And everything was fine again, he became his usual sarcastic and incredibly nervous guy he was and Phil…Phil stayed wonderful.

But then Dan had to make a stupid, idiotic, no- _horrible_ friend after Phil. He cursed himself every day for trying to be friendly and talking to Molly in his work place and cursed himself for walking out with her and bumping into Phil who went to visit Dan after they both got better jobs.

Molly became the third wheel for a month.

And the next month, Dan was the third wheel. He could never really understand how he had the sudden swarm of sadness even if Phil was better because he smelled of _her._

He couldn't bear not seeing Phil every hour and a person like him, too troubled, was never good at being alone with the low murmurings of his thoughts. Of course they still hung out, and Dan still shoved and teased Phil mercilessly because that's just what best friends do. And Phil still accepted it and remained his normal clumsy way by being attacked by another squirrel and maybe, just maybe this was why it hurt so much. That they still were the same. They were still a unit. But maybe it was because Phil wasn't exclusive to _him _anymore was what hurt the most.

Yes, there would be good days where Phil felt like staying with Dan the entire day, but some-most days, Dan was thinking of Phil and Phil was thinking of Molly.

Dan tried to suppress a vicious snap of his voice when they announced they were officially dating. Like it wasn't obvious. The fact that they tried to hide it…made it seem cute and silent…precious. But he patted Phil on the back and congratulated him, because Phil deserved happiness. He deserved love. And Dan knew he couldn't give it to him.

And then Phil began staying at Molly's, night after night after night and one night, where he didn't see Phil for a week, he broke down. He cried and regained himself, walking towards the top of the roof overlooking speeding cars on the roads and breathed in the sharp London air. It was going to rain soon, he decides, and Phil hated thunder. And Dan hated himself.

Dan paused as he looks down before he abruptly realized how far he's gone and what Phil would do if Dan hadn't stopped to think. He sat down and he comforted himself, like Phil did. Dan had always wanted Phil to be perfect whilst in reality he just wasn't and the one thing he knew that Phil took pride in, was the impact he gave on people. And Dan made sure that Phil realized how he had saved him, as painful as it was to admit, it was true. He never said it out right, but between them, words don't have to pass through their lips in order for the other to know what they meant. Dan's silent thank you to Phil.

And to leave, would hurt Phil in so many ways while he was in darkness, Phil would be in light thinking down at him. How he had failed even if he succeeded and Dan failed on himself.

So Dan cried and screamed and just stopped to close his eyes and let the wind graze through his hair because he did enough screaming in his mind.

His coping mechanism worked, in ways that Dan never knew could happen and so when Phil came and gone through their apartment which was more his own than theirs, he knew what was happening. But no, Dan didn't cry. Phil deserved the best-absolute best, and he couldn't be that friend to him.

"Dan? May I talk with you?"

Phil seemed nervous as he spoke, a half smile grazing his face as he pops into Dan's room.

"Yeah?" Dan sleeps his laptop.

"I-I have something important to say."

He knew what was coming and at this moment, Dan tried to control time, to wait a little longer before Phil truly belonged to someone else. He was selfish and self-preserving in these ways, he was sure, but Phil went on, unbothered by his silent prayer.

"Me and Molly are getting married."

In between the words of 'two weeks', 'new apartment', and 'best man', Dan felt painfully aware of himself. In that moment, he was timeless; there was no past Dan, no present Dan only himself interlocking with all these forms that were never different but different in every sentiment and idea. And most people like these, drown within the moment, never to resurface but he was his own person, and he was determined not to burn. Not today.

So instead, Dan nodded towards Phil's hopeful face and said "Yes."

And his life began and ended at that moment.

On the wedding day Dan was stuck between ruining a chapter and continuing an old one. He liked the old one, but the new one was always inevitable and no matter what, a book has multiple chapters. He just didn't want his chapter to end just yet.

"Phil, I-"Dan stutters, the pads of his fingers feeling the fine material of Phil's wedding suit. He had to say it, say it now. But did he have the heart? To make everything complicated and just crash the entire wedding of the person that mattered most to him? Especially when Phil was so happy, was Dan heartless? Yes. He was. But to Phil?...He could never. Never.

"Yeah?" Phil laughs, nervousness escaping from him.

Dan panicked, could he? To Phil? He-he couldn't. A hand has grabbed his throat, translucent and empty a feeling of light weightiness and the erratic thumping of his heart gasping.

"Never mind," Dan felt as if he's stabbed himself as his hand left Phil's shoulder, "Now go, she's waiting for you. "

Dan turned and motioned Phil to look down the aisle. It's alright, Phil was never his anyway. And he could see it. The way he had looked at her. Dan's eyes flickerd between the two and he smiled.

"And Phil?" Dan stuttered, he fucking stuttered after all these year, "You look great."

Phil pauses for a while, and Dan swears, rather hopes, that Phil leaves a glint of fondness for him to hold on to, "Thank you Dan. For everything."

"Everything?" Dan's heart clipped. Phil had saved Dan, wasn't Dan just a burden?

"You're the best friend anyone can ever have."

In that second, Dan understands what it feels like to be remembered. And maybe a part of him had accepted, had settled for what he was handed. The bride…she was lovely, even he would dare admit, and Phil…he was brilliant. He was great, perfect, awesome, wondrous, splendid, - Dan chuckled as he stuffed his hands in his pocket- he was amazing, Dan had decided. Amazing Phil.

_This is heaven, this is hell_


End file.
